


Why should a man be scorned

by Mary_from_Maryland



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood, Conversations, Gen, Pre-Canon, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_from_Maryland/pseuds/Mary_from_Maryland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben watches LaFleur’s fists as Juliet explains, follows their rhythmical clenching and unclenching.</p><p>“I’m gonna kill the man”, LaFleur states flatly when she’s finished. “Hell, I nearly went an’ killed Horace when he told me he’d sent you here, alone, for some damn spreadsheets…” He pauses and turns towards Ben, as if noticing his presence for the first time. A slow smile makes its way across his drawn face.</p><p>“‘I mind my own business unless I’ve a damn good reason not to’, ain’t that what I’d told you?”</p><p>Ben nods, smiling shyly in turn.</p><p>Yeah, well, I guess you got the spirit.”</p><p> </p><p>Four years, four conversations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Richard

**Author's Note:**

> “Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"
> 
> J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories"

**December 1973**

 

Ben goes south. 

Lush rustling leaves murmur him in as he walks out of the looming shadow of the pylons. The night is clear. He stumbles from trunk to trunk, intoxicated by the dense, resinous air of the jungle. His slender backpack is tapping lightly on his shoulders, tinging the familiar darkness with a faint undertone of fear.

Slimy pebbles clatter under his feet as he crosses the stream, and Ben his dimly aware of something inside him which is broken and unwinding, loose.

"Mom? Mom?"

The whispers are all around him.

#

This man doesn't seem dangerous, delusional or deranged. He isn't barefoot either. 

There _is_ something averted and slightly unsettling about his graceful stance and his incongruously black-rimmed eyes, but he doesn't look, he doesn't _move_ like a Hostile. 

His features soften in a superfluously attractive smile when Ben can bring himself to stammer his doubts aloud.

"Do you even know what that word means?" he asks, the slightest trace of an accent lingering in his clear-cut speech. 

Ben does know. He's old and lonely enough to devote to reading most of the time that his father can't spoil and his teachers don't steal. The heat-smothered evenings through which his schoolmates play their way in shrieking, deliberate freedom will find him lying on his stomach on the cheap wooden floor of their prefabricated house, eyes glued to the printed words and mind conventionally but effectively torn from the helpless misery of the beer-stinking man who is coughing and ranting on the living room sofa.

Books are distant, reliable and safe; a barrier of longing and confidence which only Annie's unthreatening smile is sometimes allowed to pass.

"What's your name?" the man goes on in an excessively friendly tone. He's eyeing Ben cautiously, as though he half expected him to turn around and run away. 

He cannot guess that Ben is already running. 

"Ben." 

"Ben. So, do you wanna tell me what you're doing in the middle of the jungle all by yourself?" 

"I left home, and... I'm looking for my Mom", Ben blurts out before thinking.  

"Do you think she's out here?"

 _That's three questions in a row, and I still don't know your name_ , Ben would like to say, but he restrains himself. This man can look polite and charming and perhaps even genuinely sympathetic, but he's still a grown-up stranger who appears to be living in the jungle _outside_ the fence, so it's probably safer to be compliant and polite in turn. Besides, Ben realizes all of a sudden, he's never actually talked about his mother to anyone except for his father. Few have ever asked him; fewer still have done it out of something else than crude curiosity.

"You wouldn't believe me", he says with abrupt urgency, and barely waits for the prompting "Try me" to add, "She's dead." 

The man's eyes widen, harden. 

"Did she die here, on the island?"

His voice hasn't taken on the indulgent, singsong 'everything's-ok' tone that Ben had been expecting. On the contrary, he suddenly sounds dead serious. A little scared, if anything.

"No", Ben mutters, eyes downcast. _Kinda hard to celebrate on the day you killed your Mom,_ his father drunkenly growls in his ears. "When I was a baby."

"Did you see her out here, Ben, in the jungle?"

Ben looks up. This man _believes_ him.

"She talked to me", he explains, angry excitement building up inside him.

"What did she say?"

"That I couldn't come with her. She said that it wasn't time yet." A scorching wave of hope, of denial -

"You should go home, now. Your people will be looking for you."

Reasonable. Cruel.

"I don't want to go back there!" he cries, disappointment hitting him like physical pain that will shove tears out of your eyes no matter how hard you try to bite them back. A physiological reaction. "I hate it there", he adds aggressively, and it's the raw truth. "Take me with you."

The man seems to consider.

"Maybe that can happen, maybe", he murmurs eventually, as if tasting the words, and something in the wariness of his tone tells Ben that it really isn't his call. "But if that's what you really want, Ben, if that's what you want, then I want you to really think about it."

Ben opens his mouth to reply, but he finds he's got nothing to say. The man is already backing away.

"You're gonna have to be very, very patient", he concludes, and Ben sits down and weeps, because he's nine years old and because patience is his prison, and his shelter, and his shame.


	2. LaFleur

**March 1974**

 

Ben goes east.

The pylons seem to have been stripped of all their authority in the spring-like rays of the morning sun. Under this light, Ben thinks to himself as he enters the five-digit code in the battered keypad, the sonar fence looks like the misplaced facility of some eccentric alien civilization.

He climbs the steep slope of the hill, stamping on the thorny underbrush, frowning slightly as he reaches the top, short-breathed and flustered. The air tastes like mist; everything around him is waking up under a silent dewy film.

He sets his backpack down, extracting two roughly-carved figures from its bottom. He spreads an old newspaper on the damp grass - the words  _Ermenonville air disaster_ flash and are covered by a brightly-colored picture of a washing machine - and sits on it, placing the wooden dolls at his sides. 

_Hi Mom, hi Dad._

He breathes in, letting the world blur and linger in shiny shades of grey and green behind his half-closed eyelids; he breathes out and starts to read.

#

“No _way._ You’ll have to walk over my dead body before I come over to – how did you call it? A _fertility_ party?”

Ben raises his head sharply, snapping the book shut.

“It’s to celebrate the coming of spring…”

“ _Ha_. Forget it, Boss. Hell, guys, I thought there was a limit to your hippiness…”

Ben reaches out and clutches the wooden dolls, moving in slow motion, afraid of the noise the newspaper would make if he got up.

“Oh, come on, LaFleur. It’ll be a way of getting to know each other better, of getting closer to the community. Jin and Miles are coming.”

“Oh, of course they are! Our Bruce Lee would be happy to follow you to a Hillary Duff concert as long as there were _chicks_ involved, and Jin probably thinks he’s been invited to a fishing party or somethin’. As for me, I’ve only been living in jolly ole Dharmaville for a month, but I think I got a general idea of which parts of the community I _don’t_ want to get closer to.”

“What – wait, who’s Hillary Duff?”

“She – never mind.”

Ben tenses. The voices are getting more and more distinct.

“What about Juliet?”

“Well, you’ll have to ask her. It ain’t none of my business if _her_ idea of fun includes pacifist ballads, human circles around bonfires and warm beer.”

Ben can hear panting, the crackling of footsteps.

“Who’s playing Motel Woodstock, by the way?”

“Stuart’s turn this year.”

“Stuart? You’re having your children-of-flowers reunion at _Radzinski’_ s place?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“Ask Juliet. He fancies her, and he’s a creep. He’s been stalking her for weeks-”

A khaki jumpsuit makes its way through the low underbrush. 

LaFleur stares at Ben, his arms frozen in the act of brushing fern away. Ben stares back in incongruous terror, his whole body aching under the fight-or-flight impulse.

“Jim? I think we’ve taken the wrong turn at the last crossroads. The Arrow’s not this way.”

“Right”, LaFleur says, his eyes fixed on Ben. “Comin’.”

#

“Is there anything I can do for you, kid?”

A pause.

“You ain’t the talkative type, huh?”

Ben shrugs noncommittally.

“Where are your friends?”

Another shrug. So much for the sake of appearances.

“Ok then. Come on in.”

#

“You’re Ben, right?” LaFleur asks, his back to the boy, busy with teabags.

This time, Ben nods. “Ben Linus, he adds automatically. LaFleur’s hands freeze for a split second over the kitchen sink.

“Listen, you don’t have to thank me, if that’s what you’re here for”, he says, placing a mug with the DI logo on it in Ben’s hands. “For not telling you Pa I caught you sneaking around in the jungle, I mean. I mind my own business unless I’ve a damn good reason not to, so no harm done”, he adds, fiddling with his own mug, and Ben suddenly realizes he’s not afraid of this man.

“What was it that you were reading, by the way?”

“Oh… _Of Mice and Men_.”

LaFleur laughs quietly, as at some inside joke, then asks, “Ain’t you a little young for that?” which earns him another shrug.

“Do you miss it? Where you came from?” Ben breaks the silence, to his own surprise.

“What? Yeah, sometimes.” Somehow, Ben knows he’s lying.

“Did you leave family? Your Mom and Dad?” he insists, wondering at his own inquisitiveness.

“No family”, LaFleur tells the placemat. “My parents died when I was a kid. Car accident.”

“D’you ever think it was your fault?” Ben thinks aloud, then mutters “Sorry”, cursing himself, waiting silently for scolding and outrage.

LaFleur, however, merely passes a hand over his face. “Listen, kid -”

The door bangs open.

“Jim? Jim! Are you _seriously_ not coming to the party at Radzinski’s place? Because there’s a bunch of-”

Miles sees Ben, registers, stops dead.

“Oh. Right. I’ll see you around, then”. He disappears, closing the door on a flutter of feminine giggle.

“You’d better go home.”


	3. Juliet

**August 1976**

 

 

Ben goes north.

The scalding sun pours his heartless rage on every surface, crawling, sneaking. The tinplate stacked against the back of the Flame radiates fluttering waves of heat that distort the landscape behind as through a deforming glass.

Ben lies on his stomach in the stifling shade, watching, waiting.

#

“Get your hands off me now or I swear I will -”

“Why? Why do you always have to be so _rude_ to me, Juliet? It’s not as if I didn’t try to get to this the nice way…”

“You’re going to regret this -”

“Am I? Because you know, it looks to me like you’re the one who’s most likely to regre-”

A thud, a stifled groan.

“All right, bitch, you asked for it-”

Ben stands up and walks silently into the yard.

Radzinski gapes at him, twisting Juliet’s arm behind her back for another moment before letting go, his hands dangling limply at his sides.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he spits with an edge of panic in his voice. Juliet is staring at Ben, too. Ben just looks back.

“Hey – you’re Ben, Ben Linus, right?” Radzinski takes a step towards him with what Ben supposes is a failed attempt to an encouraging smile. Drops of sweat are glistening on his forehead. Juliet massages her shoulder.

“Look, here’s what we can do”, Radzinski goes on. “You keep to yourself what you – overheard today, and I don’t tell your father that I saw you outside the fence, all right?”

Ben gives one short nod.

“There’s a smart boy”, Radzinski says hoarsely, and, stealing a last nervous glance at Juliet, he disappears.

Juliet’s expression is unreadable when Ben meets her eyes.

“Fancy something to eat?”

They sit on a bench in the yard with the plates on their knees. Juliet barely touches her toast.

“I should’ve broken his neck”, she murmurs eventually. “I should’ve smashed his _face_ , I-” and suddenly she’s sobbing, quietly. A few tears fall into her plate. Ben puts a tentative hand on her knee, feeling faintly scared, but this seems to upset her even more, so he withdraws it.

After a while, she calms down.

“How did you get here?” she asks, sniffing.

“I walked.”

Juliet gives him a patient look, a tiny smile. Ben loves her eyes. “It’s a two days’ walk from the Barracks to here”, she points out. She doesn’t mention the pylons.

“I knew the way. I walked”, Ben repeats. “Dad’s on duty at the Pearl”, he adds as an explanation.

“I’m sorry", Juliet says softly, but she doesn’t tell him why.

#

“Juliet? Juliet!”

Ben watches LaFleur’s fists as Juliet explains, follows their rhythmical clenching and unclenching.

“I’m gonna kill the man”, LaFleur states flatly when she’s finished. “Hell, I nearly went an’ killed _Horace_ when he told me he’d sent you here, alone, for some damn _spreadsheets_ …” He pauses and turns towards Ben, as if noticing his presence for the first time. A slow smile makes its way across his drawn face.

“‘I mind my own business unless I’ve a damn good reason not to’, ain’t that what I’d told you?”

Ben nods, smiling shyly in turn.

“Yeah, well, I guess you got the spirit.”


	4. Hugo

 

**July 1977**

 

Ben goes west.

He sits at the edge of the clearing in the fading sunlight and knows with sudden clarity that everything he’s ever done and felt boils down to a big, complex, clumsy game of pretending.

He can hear the muffled voices of workmen over the monotonous drills of the construction site. He can see the dust, tiny white spots glistening in the orange light.

He’s been running. And running. _And_ running. Closing his eyes in front of the merciless shame of his life, waiting, denying – stumbling in the jungle, concealing his flight behind the blind chase of a whispering shadow.

 _There’s nothing behind me_ , he thinks in a kind of quiet exhilaration as he remembers the Hostile’s dark face, his crisp accent, his pride; his father breathing heavily on the living room floor, drooling a little, the key sliding silently out of his pocket.

Ben is done with waiting.

#

“Dude. You couldn’t, like, give me a hand with these?”

An immoderately big man is peering at him expectantly.

“I’m Hugo. Hurley, if you prefer. The new recruit?”

Ben helps him carry anonymous black boxes to his blue van, which is parked fifty metres away in the jungle.

“ _Phew._ Thanks, dude”, the man says when they’re finished, wiping his forehead. “Hey, I can give you a ride home. C’mon”, he adds, awarding Ben a shattering pat on his shoulders, “Buffet’s free.”

#

“You’re not, like, vegetarian or something”, the man asks as he fumbles with the ignition, contemporarily handing Ben a chicken and tomato sandwich.

“No”, Ben says.

The van coughs and shudders to life. Hugo leans forward, one hand on the steering wheel, the other one rummaging in the depths of a drawer. “Aha”, he exults, extracting an Apollo chocolate bar, half of which he crams into his mouth.

"So you don't like it at the Barracks", he says, his eyes on the darkening road.

"No", Ben says.

"Neither do I", Hugo agrees cheerfully. "I mean, not so much? Although it's way better than the place I was before."

"Is it?" Ben asks in a skeptical tone.

"Oh yeah. But that's not saying much. I mean, pretty much everywhere is better than a mental institution."

Ben turns towards him. "You were in a mental institution? Why?"

The man gives a placid shrug. "I, like, won the lottery?" he says, and then bursts out laughing. "no, I mean, it's just, like, a long story." There's something gratifying about his smile. "But I'm not nuts."

Ben keeps silent.

"Hey, did you like _Return of the Jedi_?" Hugo asks after a while.

"I don't know what it is."

"You don't - dude, are you _kidding_ me? It's just the most freakin' -" A moment of silence. "Hey, what about some music?" Hugo slams a random tape into the 8-track player and Buffalo Springfield start singing.

"It wasn't that bad, anyway", Hugo says thoughtfully. "Back at Santa Rosa. I met some nice people. You got many friends?" he asks abruptly.

"Not really", Ben says. He can as well reciprocate the man's sincerity.

"Yeah. It's not, like, always easy, huh? Anyway, I had a friend there. Dave. Nice guy. Sometimes he even made the whole thing look like fun."

Hugo bites his lower lip, reaches out to polish the dusty windscreen.

"Is he still there?"

Hugo shakes his head, frowning slightly. "He didn't, like, technically exist."

"Oh." Ben wonders if he should be worried. He isn't.

"Hey. Dude. Don't worry", Hugo says, as if reading his thoughts. "I already told you I'm not nuts. I mean, I probably was a little, back then, making up people and all that..."

The sun is setting; Ben shivers slightly in the passenger seat.

"But hey, he  _was_ a friend, Dave", Hugo goes on, turning on the lights. "I mean, it was just..." he sighs. "Sometimes you just wanna, like, run away, you know?"

"Yeah", Ben mutters, his voice almost drowned by the notes of  _For What It's Worth._ "I know."


End file.
